


Choice

by Hormonal_Trashbag



Series: Moments of Desparity [3]
Category: Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: Angst, Ben Solo is an asshole but not because he means it, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 17:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13171374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hormonal_Trashbag/pseuds/Hormonal_Trashbag
Summary: With both eyes fixed stubbornly on her plate, Rey sopped up the plasticky tasting gravy from her vacuum-sealed dinner with a dense chunk of carbo-rusk, licking the excess that dribbled down her fingers. It was still better than the dried out veg-meat she had scavenged for.Evidently, he did not appreciate being ignored.“That’s disgusting,”he informed her with a prim, superior tone.Rey wondered how childish it would be for her to chew with her mouth open out of spite.





	Choice

It had been a long day--and Rey had had her fair share of long days, waiting on Jakku for parents that weren’t coming back--of fruitless endeavor, reaching out to old allies of a Rebellion long dead to be answered with chilling silence. At the end of it, it seemed that Rey was still who she had always been. After a hard day’s work, she found the most palpable rations aboard and ate with gusto.

Leia maintained her poised strength, at least when she knew she was within sight of the ever-hopeful Resistance fighters. In moments of privacy, she had felt the General’s anguish and loneliness seep into the Force without disguise.

She wondered if Ben could feel it, too, how his mother grieved for him as if he was dead.

In a sense, he was.

_“That’s what I’ve been trying to prove. Ben Solo_ is _dead and gone.”_

Rey grit her teeth. She didn’t have to dignify his unnecessary comment, or appearance for that matter, with a response. With both eyes fixed stubbornly on her plate, Rey sopped up the plasticky tasting gravy from her vacuum-sealed dinner with a dense chunk of carbo-rusk, licking the excess that dribbled down her fingers. It was still better than the dried out veg-meat she had scavenged for.

Evidently, he did not appreciate being ignored.

_“That’s disgusting,”_ he informed her with a prim, superior tone.

Rey wondered how childish it would be for her to chew with her mouth open out of spite.

It was best to just pretend he wasn’t there. In moments of weakness, she had allowed him too much. Rey shouldn’t have kissed him. She certainly shouldn’t have let him touch her.

_“I have no idea how you can stomach that garbage,”_ Ben continued, no doubt with his pointed nose upturned in distaste. _“I would give you only the best at my table: fresh, crusty bread still warm from the oven; juicy, sweet fruit with cream; meat that falls from the bone--”_

Damn him.

There was no denying how she felt about Ben but sometimes, he made it so easy to hate him.

“You failed to win me over with sex so you thought you could buy me with _food?”_ she seethed. “Leave me alone, Kylo.”

Somehow, she could _feel_ his silence. It filled the small bunk she had taken aboard the Falcon like cloying smoke in her lungs.

_“You haven’t called me that name since…”_ he spoke slowly before trailing off, thinking better of it. _“Is that what you think of me? That I want to buy you?”_

Rey glanced in the direction of his voice, nearly sagging with relief at the realization he hadn’t appeared half-naked again. She wasn’t sure she would have the restraint to resist leaping into his lap if she had been faced with his bare, broad chest.

“You’ve yet to do anything that would make me think otherwise, _Kylo.”_

In an instant, his hackles rose. _“Don’t call me that!”_

“What, your name?” she snarled back. “I thought ‘Ben Solo is dead and gone.’”

He floundered, and when Rey dared to meet his gaze, she was lanced by the absolute misery that pooled in their soft, dark depths. How dare he look at her as if she had made a mistake? He could have left with her. They could have been together.

She snapped off another piece of carbo-rusk with her back molars to distract herself, slowly chewing the mouthful into a dry paste that took several swallows to get down. The tight sensation in her throat had nothing to do with the tears she had to blink back.

Ben’s voice was strained. _“Rey, I don’t want to own you. You aren’t a possession to be bartered over.”_

She sneered. “I guess that makes sense. Why would you barter for nothing, right?”

Her tray went flying towards the bulkhead, two warm fists coiling around her biceps to jostle her almost painfully. Ben leaned forward to loom over her, his tone dangerous, his face nearly red with rage.

_“Why do you keep doing this? You completely ignore what I say! You’re_ not _nothing to me!”_

“If I meant anything to you,” she answered with a cool tone and withering glare, “you would have stopped the attack on Crait. You would have left with me. You made your choice, Kylo Ren, and now you have to live with it.”

He recoiled as if she had slapped him across the face. “So, that’s it, then? What I feel doesn’t matter? Rey, I lo--”

She clapped her palm over his mouth before he could finish. “Don’t say it. Don’t you _dare_. People throw those words around too easily without meaning it--without realizing the weight of them or the consequences--”

He tore her hand away.

_“You think I don’t know that?”_ he hissed. _“Who do you think_ taught _me those words, only to turn me away and betray me? You’re the one who has no way of understanding their weight, Rey, not me. How could you, when no one’s ever said them to you before?”_

She sucked in sharply, unable to even comprehend the sharp, turbulent emotions roiling in her gut. His jaw tightened, a vein jutting out on his pale neck, instant regret twisting his prominent features.

That didn’t stop Rey from swinging her hand to strike his cheek. _Hard_. Hard enough to force his head to turn the other way. A blotchy, stinging, red mark bloomed on his face where she hit him but her eyes were drawn away from her handprint to his quivering bottom lip.

“Leave. Now,” she whispered, voice strangled by tears. “Don’t ever speak to me again.”

A large, gloved hand rested on her shoulder. _“Rey, please, you know I didn’t mean it like--”_

“I don’t care. I don’t care if I never see your face again,” she said, rolling her shoulder to dislodge his warm palm.

Why did the Force pair them together? How could it be so cruel? The Force had lied, to make her believe that Ben could be at her side when clearly, Kylo Ren was unwilling to be smothered. She hated that she was so intimately connected to such a man. And yet, her heart clenched painfully at the thought of losing the bridge between their minds.

_“No,”_ he breathed. _“I refuse.”_

“I wasn’t giving you a choice.”

He reached for her once more, long fingers winding into loose waves of auburn hair as he tilted her head back gently, forcing her to meet his gaze.

_“Maybe I don’t care either,”_ he murmured. _“If you think love is easy and happy then you’re wrong. It’s utter anguish. It’s pure and beautiful and causes such pain sometimes I think it would be kinder to die at your hand.”_

Rey didn’t dare to allow herself to hope. Her chest twisted with something as pure and painful as he described but it changed nothing. Even if she did...even if he meant his confession...they were still enemies. For a selfish moment, she wished they could disappear, go somewhere their names weren’t known and be free to live and love without guilt. It was an unrealistic, childish dream and Rey closed her heart to the idea before it could fester.

“Why bother, if it’s so terrible, then?”

He exhaled slowly, his forehead dipping forward to rest against hers. _“Because to me, you’re everything.”_

The fight that boiled in her bones simmered into nothingness.

Ben’s touch disappeared with it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If there's something in particular you'd like to see from this mini-series, I'll take it into consideration. No promises, though!
> 
> Feedback is appreciated. :)


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